This is a case study which shows how Voorhees College implemented a revolutionary communications solution based around a service-orientated Unified Communications architecture from NEC to provide students, faculty and staff in five locations with software-based voice and desktop communications tools to achieve a 40 percent savings over its previous traditional telephony solution.

Network Centric Operations (NCO) recognises the demand for pervasive decision-making in the modern battlespace. NCO provides the ability to leverage information networks to generate a more dynamic and agile decision-making space. An important dimension of this approach is the technological flexibility to quickly move the decision-making authority hierarchically or geographically as the situation demands. A fundamental enabler to this approach is the concept of a services orientated architecture (SOA). The use of industry-standard IT architectures provides the means of ensuring that systems can be provisioned rapidly, can be shared as appropriate, and can give the flexibility and response times required within such challenging environments.